Origen

Origen. Commentary on John

Book II

1. "And the Word was with God, and the Word was God." In the preceding
section, my revered brother Ambrosius, brother formed according to the Gospel,
we have discussed, as far as is at present in our power, what the Gospel is, and
what is the beginning in which the Word was, and what the Word is which was in
the beginning. We now come to consider the next point in the work before us, How
the Word was with God. To this end it will be of service to remember that what
is called the Word came to certain persons; as "The Word of the Lord which came
to Hosea, the son of Beeri," and "The Word which came to Isaiah, the son of
Amos, concerning Judah and concerning Jerusalem," and "The Word which came to
Jeremiah concerning the drought." We must enquire how this Word came to Hosea,
and how it came also to Isaiah the son of Amos, and again to Jeremiah concerning
the drought; the comparison may enable us to dud out how the Word was with God.
The generality will simply look at what the prophets said, as if that were the
Word of the Lord or the Word, that came to them. May it not be, however, that as
we say that this person comes to that, so the Son, the Word, of whom we are now
theologizing, came to Hosea, sent to him by the Father; historically, that is to
say, to the son of Beeri, the prophet Hosea, but mystically to him who is saved,
for Hosea means, etymologically, Saved; and to the son of Beeri, which
etymologically means wells, since every one who is saved becomes a son of that
spring which gushes forth out of the depths, the wisdom of God. And it is nowise
marvellous that the saint should be a son of wells. From his brave deeds he is
often called a son, whether, from his works shining before men, of light, or
from his possessing the peace of God which passes all understanding, of peace,
or, once more, from the help which wisdom brings him, a child of wisdom; for
wisdom, it says, is justified of her children. Thus he who by the divine spirit
searches all things, and even the deep things of God, so that he can exclaim, "O
the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God!" he can be
a son of wells, to whom the Word of the Lord comes. Similarly the Word comes
also to Isaiah, teaching the things which are coming upon Judaea and Jerusalem
in the last days; and so also it comes to Jeremiah lifted up by a divine
elation. For IAO means etymologically lifting up, elation. Now the Word comes to
men who formerly could not receive the advent of the Son of God who is the Word;
but to God it does not come, as if it had not been with Him before. The Word was
always with the Father; and so it is said, "And the Word was with God." He did
not come to God, and this same word "was" is used of the Word because He was in
the beginning at the same time when He was with God, neither being separated
from the beginning nor being bereft of His Father. And again, neither did He
come to be in the beginning after He had not been in it, nor did He come to be
with God after not having been with Him. For before all time and the remotest
age the Word was in the beginning, and the Word was with God. Thus to find out
what is meant by the phrase, "The Word was with God," we have adduced the words
used about the prophets, how He came to Hosea, to Isaiah, to Jeremiah, and we
have noticed the difference, by no means accidental, between "became" and "was."
We have to add that in His coming to the prophets He illuminates the prophets
with the light of knowledge, causing them to see things which had been before
them, but which they had not understood till then. With God, however, He is God,
just because He is with Him. And perhaps it was because he saw some such order
in the Logos, that John did not place the clause "The Word was God" before the
clause "The Word was with God." The series in which he places his different
sentences does not prevent the force of each axiom from being separately and
fully seen. One axiom is, "In the beginning was the Word," a second, "The Word
was with God," and then comes, "And the Word was God." The arrangement of the
sentences might be thought to indicate an order; we have first "In the beginning
was the Word," then, "And the Word was with God," and thirdly, "And the Word was
God," so that it might be seen that the Word being with God makes Him God.

2. IN WHAT WAY THE LOGOS IS GOD. ERRORS TO BE AVOIDED ON THIS QUESTION.

We next notice John's use of the article in these sentences. He does not
write without care in this respect, nor is he unfamiliar with the niceties of
the Greek tongue. In some cases he uses the article, and in some he omits it. He
adds the article to the Logos, but to the name of God he adds it sometimes only.
He uses the article, when the name of God refers to the uncreated cause of all
things, and omits it when the Logos is named God. Does the same difference which
we observe between God with the article and God without it prevail also between
the Logos with it and without it? We must enquire into this. As the God who is
over all is God with the article not without it, so "the Logos" is the source of
that reason (Logos) which dwells in every reasonable creature; the reason which
is in each creature is not, like the former called par excellence The Logos. Now
there are many who are sincerely concerned about religion, and who fall here
into great perplexity. They are afraid that they may be proclaiming two Gods,
and their fear drives them into doctrines which are false and wicked. Either
they deny that the Son has a distinct nature of His own besides that of the
Father, and make Him whom they call the Son to be God all but the name, or they
deny the divinity of the Son, giving Him a separate existence of His own, and
making His sphere of essence fall outside that of the Father, so that they are
separable from each other. To such persons we have to say that God on the one
hand is Very God (Autotheos, God of Himself); and so the Saviour says in His
prayer to the Father, "That they may know Thee the only true God; "but that all
beyond the Very God is made God by participation in His divinity, and is not to
be called simply God (with the article), but rather God (without article). And
thus the first-born of all creation, who is the first to be with God, and to
attract to Himself divinity, is a being of more exalted rank than the other gods
beside Him, of whom God is the God, as it is written, "The God of gods, the
Lord, hath spoken and called the earth." It was by the offices of the first-born
that they became gods, for He drew from God in generous measure that they should
be made gods, and He communicated it to them according to His own bounty. The
true God, then, is "The God," and those who are formed after Him are gods,
images, as it were, of Him the prototype. But the archetypal image, again, of
all these images is the Word of God, who was in the beginning, and who by being
with God is at all times God, not possessing that of Himself, but by His being
with the Father, and not continuing to be God, if we should think of this,
except by remaining always in uninterrupted contemplation of the depths of the
Father.

3. VARIOUS RELATIONS OF THE LOGOS TO MEN.

Now it is possible that some may dislike what we have said representing the
Father as the one true God, but admitting other beings besides the true God, who
have become gods by having a share of God. They may fear that the glory of Him
who surpasses all creation may be lowered to the level of those other beings
called gods. We drew this distinction between Him and them that we showed God
the Word to be to all the other gods the minister of their divinity. To this we
must add, in order to obviate objections, that the reason which is in every
reasonable creature occupied the same relation to the reason who was in the
beginning with God, and is God the Word, as God the Word occupies to God. As the
Father who is Very God and the True God is to His image and to the images of His
image--men are said to be according to the image, not to be images of God--so
He, the Word, is to the reason (word) in every man. Each fills the place of a
fountain--the Father is the fountain of divinity, the Son of reason. As, then,
there are many gods, but to us there is but one God the Father, and many Lords,
but to us there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, so there are many Lgoi, but
we, for our part, pray that that one Lgos; may be with us who was in the
beginning and was with God, God the Logos. For whoever does not receive this
Logos who was in the beginning with God, or attach himself to Him as He appeared
in flesh, or take part in some of those who had part in this Logos, or whoever
having had part in Him falls away from Him again, he will have his portion in
what is called most opposite to reason. What we have drawn out from the truths
with which we started will now be clear enough. First, we spoke about God and
the Word of God, and of Gods, either, that is, beings who partake in deity or
beings who are called Gods and are not. And again of the Logos of God and of the
Logos of God made flesh, and of logoi, or beings which partake in some way of
the Logos, of second logoi or of third, thought to be logoi, in addition to that
Logos that was before them all, but not really so. Irrational Reasons these may
be styled; beings are spoken of who are said to be Gods but are not, and one
might place beside these Gods who are no Gods, Reasons which are no Reasons. Now
the God of the universe is the God of the elect, and in a much greater degree of
the Saviours of the elect; then He is the God of these beings who are truly
Gods, and then He is the God, in a word, of the living and not of the dead. But
God the Logos is the God, perhaps, of those who attribute everything to Him and
who consider Him to be their Father. Now the sun and the moon and the stars were
connected, according to the accounts of men of old times, with beings who were
not worthy to have the God of gods counted their God. To this opinion they were
led by a passage in Deuteronomy which is somewhat on this wise: "Lest when thou
liftest up thine eyes to heaven, and seest the sun and the moon and the whole
host of heaven, thou wander away and worship them and serve them which the Lord
thy God hath appointed to all the peoples. But to you the Lord thy God hath not
so given them." But how did God appoint the sun and the moon and all the host of
heaven to all the nations, if He did not give them in the same way to Israel
also, to the end that those who could not rise to the realm of intellect, might
be inclined by gods of sense to consider about the Godhead, and might of their
own free will connect themselves with these and so be kept from falling away to
idols and demons? Is it not the case that some have for their God the God of the
universe, while a second class, after these, attach themselves to the Son of
God, His Christ, and a third class worship the sun and the moon and all the host
of heaven, wandering, it is true, from God, but with a far different and a
better wandering than that of those who invoke as gods the works of men's hands,
silver and gold,-works of human skill. Last of all are those who devote
themselves to the beings which are called gods but are no gods. In the same way,
now, some have faith in that Reason which was in the beginning and was with God
and was God; so did Hosea and Isaiah and Jeremiah and others who declared that
the Word of the Lord, or the Logos, had come to them. A second class are those
who know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified, considering that the Word
made flesh is the whole Word, and knowing only Christ after the flesh. Such is
the great multitude of those who are counted believers. A third class give
themselves to logoi (discourses) having some part in the Logos which they
consider superior to all other reason: these are they who follow the honourable
and distinguished philosophical schools among the Greeks. A fourth class besides
these are they who put their trust in corrupt and godless discourses, doing away
with Providence, which is so manifest and almost visible, and who recognize
another end for man to follow than the good. It may appear to some that we have
wandered from our theme, but to my thinking the view we have reached of four
things connected with the name of God and four things connected with the Logos
comes in very well at this point. There was God with the article and God without
the article, then there were gods in two orders, at the summit of the higher
order of whom is God the Word, transcended Himself by the God of the universe.
And, again, there was the Logos with the article and the Logos without the
article, corresponding to God absolutely and a god; and the Logoi in two ranks.
And some men are connected with the Father, being part of Him, and next to
these, those whom our argument now brings into clearer light, those who have
come to the Saviour and take their stand entirely in Him. And third are those of
whom we spoke before, who reckon the sun and the moon and the stars to be gods,
and take their stand by them. And in the fourth and last place those who submit
to soulless and dead idols. To all this we find analogies in what concerns the
Logos. Some are adorned with the Word Himself; some with what is next to Him and
appears to be the very original Logos Himself, those, namely, who know nothing
but Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and who behold the Word as flesh. And the
third class, as we described them a little before. Why should I speak of those
who are thought to be in the Logos, but have fallen away, not only from the good
itself, but from the very traces of it and from those who have a part in it?

4. THAT THE LOGOS IS ONE, NOT MANY. OF THE WORD, FAITHFUL AND TRUE, AND OF
HIS WHITE HORSE.

"He was in the beginning with God." By his three foregoing propositions the
Evangelist has made us acquainted with three orders, and he now sums up the
three in one, saying, "This (Logos) was in the beginning with God." In the first
premiss we learned where the Logos was: He was in the beginning; then we learned
with whom He was, with God; and then who He was, that He was God. He now points
out by this word "He," the Word who is God, and gathers up into a fourth
proposition the three which went before, "In the beginning was the Word," "The
Word was with God," and "The Word was God." Now he says, He, this (Word) was in
the beginning with God. The term beginning may be taken of the beginning of the
world, so that we may learn from what is said that the Word was older than the
things which were made from the beginning. For if "in the beginning God created
heaven and earth," but "He" was in the beginning, then the Logos is manifestly
older than those things which were made at the beginning, older not only than
the firmament and the dry land, but than the heavens and earth. Now some one
might ask, and not unreasonably, why it is not said, "In the beginning was the
Word of God, and the Word of God was with God, and the Word of God was God." But
he who asked such a question could be shown to be taking for granted that there
are a plurality of logoi, differing perhaps from each other in kind, one being
the word of God, another perhaps the word of angels, a third of men, and so on
with the other logoi. Now, if this were so with the Logos, the case would be the
same with wisdom and with righteousness. But it would be absurd that there
should be a number of things equally to be called "The Word;" and the same would
apply to wisdom and to righteousness. We shall be driven to confess that we
ought not to look for a plurality of logoi, or of wisdom, or of righteousness,
if we look at the case of truth. Any one will confess that there is only one
truth; it could never be said in this case that there is one truth of God, and
another of the angels, and another of man,--it lies ill the nature of things
that the truth about anything is one. Now, if truth be one, it is clear that the
preparation of it and its demonstration, which is wisdom, must in reason be
conceived as one, since what is regarded as wisdom cannot justly claim that
title where truth, which is one, is absent from its grasp. But if truth is one
and wisdom one, then Reason (Logos) also, which announces truth and makes truth
simple and manifest to those who are fitted to receive it, will be one. This we
say, by no means denying that truth and wisdom and reason are of God, but we
wish to indicate the purpose of the omission in this passage of the words "of
God," and of the form of the statement, "In the beginning the Logos was with
God." The same John in the Apocalypse gives Him His name with the addition "of
God," where he says: "And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse, and He
that sat thereon called Faithful and True; and in righteousness doth He judge
and make war. And His eyes are as a flame of fire, and on His head are many
diadems, and He hath a name written which no one knoweth but He Himself. And He
is arrayed in a garment sprinkled with blood, and His name is called Word of
God. And His armies in heaven followed Him on white horses, clothed in pure fine
linen. And out of His mouth proceedeth a sharp sword, that with it He should
smite the nations, and He shall rule them with a rod of iron, and He treadeth
the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God. And He hath on His
garment and on His thigh a name written: King of kings, and Lord of lords." In
this passage Logos is necessarily spoken of absolutely without the article, and
also with the addition Logos of God; had the first not been the case (i.e., had
the article been given) we might have been led to take up the meaning wrongly,
and so to depart from the truth about the Logos. For if it had been called
simply Logos, and had not been said to be the Logos of God, then we would not be
clearly informed that the Logos is the Logos of God. And, again, had it been
called Logos of God but not said to be Logos absolutely, then we might imagine
many logoi, according to the constitution of each of the rational beings which
exist; then we might assume a number of logoi properly so called. Again, in his
description in the Apocalypse of the Logos of God, the Apostle and Evangelist
(and the Apocalypse entitles him to be styled a prophet, too) says he saw the
Word of God in the opened heaven, and that He was riding on a white horse. Now
we must consider what he means to convey when he speaks of heaven being opened
and of the white horse, and of the Word of God riding on the white horse, and
also what is meant by saying that the Word of God is Faithful and True, and that
in righteousness He judges and makes war. All this will greatly advance our
study on the subject of the Word of God. Now I conceive heaven to have been shut
against the ungodly, and those who bear the image of the earthly, and to have
been opened to the righteous and those adorned with the image of the heavenly.
For to the former, being below and still dwelling in the flesh, the better
things are closed, since they cannot understand them and have neither power nor
will to see their beauty, looking down as they do and not striving to look up.
But to the excellent, or those who have their commonwealth in heaven, he opens,
with the key of David, the things in heavenly places and discloses them to their
view, and makes all clear to them by riding on his horse. These words also have
their meaning; the horse is white because it is the nature of higher knowledge
(gnosis) to be clear and white and full of light. And on the white horse
sits He who is called Faithful, seated more firmly, and so to speak more
royally, on words which cannot be set aside, words which run sharply and more
swiftly than any horse, and overhear in their rushing course every so-called
word that simulates the Word, and every so-called truth that simulates the
Truth. He who sits on the white horse is called Faithful, not because of the
faith He cherishes, but of that which He inspires, because He is worthy of
faith. Now the Lord Jehovah, according to Moses, is Faithful and True. He is
true also in respect of His relation to shadow, type, and image; for such is the
Word who is in the opened heaven, for He is not on earth as He is in heaven; on
earth He is made flesh and speaks through shadow, type, and image. The
multitude, therefore, of those who are reputed to believe are disciples of the
shadow of the Word, not of the true Word of God which is in the opened heaven.
Hence Jeremiah says, "The Spirit of our face is Christ the Lord, of whom we
said, In His shadow shall we live among the nations." Thus the Word of God who
is called Faithful is also called True, and ill righteousness He judges and
makes war; since He has received from God the faculty of judging in very
righteousness and very judgment, and of apportioning its due to every existing
creature. For none of those who have some portion of righteousness and of the
faculty of judgment can receive on his soul such copies and impressions of
righteousness and judgment as to come short in no point of absolute
righteousness and absolute justice, just as no painter of a picture can
communicate to the representation all the qualities of the original. This, I
conceive, is the reason why David says, "Before Thee shall no living being be
justified." He does not say, no man, or no angel, but no living being, since
even if any being partakes of life and has altogether put off mortality, not
even then can it be justified in comparison of Thee, who art, as it were, Life
itself. Nor is it possible that one who partakes of life and is therefore called
living, should become life itself, or that one who partakes of righteousness
and, therefore, is called righteous should become equal to righteousness itself.
Now it is the function of the Word of God, not only to judge in righteousness,
but also to make war in righteousness, that by making war on His enemies by
reason and righteousness, so that what is irrational and wicked is destroyed, He
may dwell in the soul of him who, for his salvation, so to speak, has become
captive to Christ, and may justify that soul and cast out from her all
adversaries. We shall, however, obtain a better view of this war which the Word
carries on if we remember that He is an ambassador for the truth. while there is
another who pretends to be the Word and is not, and one who calls herself the
truth and is not, but a lie. Then the Word, arming Himself against the lie,
slays it with the breath of His mouth and brings it to naught by the
manifestation of His coming. And consider whether these words of the Apostle to
the Thessalonians may be understood in an intellectual sense. For what is that
which is destroyed by the breath of the mouth of Christ, Christ being the Word
and Truth and Wisdom, but the lie? And what is that which is brought to naught
by the manifestation of Christ's coming, Christ being conceived as wisdom and
reason, what but that which announces itself as wisdom, when in reality it is
one of those things with which God deals as the Apostle describes, "He taketh
the wise, those who are not wise with the true wisdom, in their own craftiness"?
To what he says of the rider on the white horse, John adds the wonderful
statement: "His eyes are like a flame of fire." For as the flame of fire is
bright and illuminating, but at the same thee fiery and destructive of material
things, so, if I may so say, are the eyes of the Logos with which He sees, and
every one who has part in Him; they have not only the inherent quality of laying
hold of the things of the mind, but also that of consuming and putting away
those conceptions which are more material and gross, since whatever is in any
way false flees from the directness and lightness of truth. It is in a very
natural order that after speaking of Him who judges in righteousness and makes
war in accordance with His righteous judgments, and then after His warring of
His giving light, the writer goes on to say, "On His head are many diadems." For
had the lie been one, and of one form only, against which the True and Faithful
Word contended, and for conquering which. He was crowned, then one crown alone
would naturally have been given Him for the victory. As it is, however, as the
lies are many which profess the truth and for warring against which the Word is
crowned, the diadems are many which surround the head of the conqueror of them
all. As He has overcome every revolting power many diadems mark His victory.
Then after the diadems He is said to have a name written which no one knows but
He Himself. For there are some things which are known to the Word alone; for the
beings which come into existence after Him have a poorer nature than His, and
none of them is able to behold all that He apprehends. And perhaps it is the
case that only those who have part in that Word know the things which are kept
from the knowledge of those who do not partake of Him. Now, in John's vision,
the Word of God as He rides on the white horse is not naked: He is clothed with
a garment sprinkled with blood, for the Word who was made flesh and therefore
died is surrounded with marks of the fact that His blood was poured out upon the
earth, when the soldier pierced His side. For of that passion, even should it be
our lot some day to come to that highest and supreme contemplation of the Logos,
we shall not lose all memory, nor shall we forget the truth that our admission
was brought about by His sojourning in our body.

This Word of God is followed by the heavenly armies one and all; they follow
the Word as their leader, and imitate Him in all things, and chiefly in having
mounted, they also, white horses. To him that understands, this secret is open.
And as sorrow and grief and wailing fled away at the end of things, so also, I
suppose, did obscurity and doubt, all the mysteries of God's wisdom being
precisely and clearly opened. Look also at the white horses of the followers of
the Word and at the white and pure linen with which they were clothed. As linen
comes out of the earth, may not those linen garments stand for the dialects on
the earth in which those voices are clothed which make clear announcements of
things? We have dealt at some length with the statements found in the Apocalypse
about the Word of God; it is important for us to know clearly about Him.

5. HE (THIS ONE) WAS IN THE BEGINNING WITH GOD.

To those who fail to distinguish with care the different propositions of the
context the Evangelist may appear to be repeating himself. "He was in the
beginning with God" may seem to add nothing to "And the Word was with God." We
must observe more carefully. In the statement "The Word was with God" we are not
told anything of the when or the where; that is added in the fourth axiom.

There are four axioms, or, as some call them, propositions, the fourth being
"He was in the beginning with God." Now "The Word was with God" is not the same
thing as "He was," etc; for here we are told, not only that He was with God, but
when and where He was so: "He was in the beginning with God." The "He," too,
used as it is for a demonstration, will be considered to refer to the Word, or
by a less careful enquirer, to God. What was noted before is now summed up in
this designation "He," the notion of the Logos and that of God; and as the
argument proceeds the different notions are collected in one; for the notion God
is not included in the notion Logos, nor the notion Logos in that of God. And
perhaps the proposition before us is a summing up in one of the three which have
preceded. Taking the statement that the Word was in the beginning, we have not
yet learned that He was with God, and taking the statement that the Word was
with God it is not yet clear to us that He was with God in the beginning; and
taking the statement that the Word was God, it has neither been shown that He
was in the beginning, nor that He was with God.

Now when the Evangelist says, "He was in the beginning with God," if we apply
the pronoun "He" to the Word and to God (as He is God) and consider that "in the
beginning" is conjoined with it, and "with God" added to it, then there is
nothing left of the three propositions that is not summed up and brought
together in this one. And as "in the beginning" has been said twice, we may
consider if there are not two lessons we may learn. First, that the Word was in
the beginning, as if lie was by Himself and not with any one, and secondly, that
He was in the beginning with God. And I consider that there is nothing untrue in
saying of Him both that He was in the beginning, and in the beginning with God,
for neither was He with God alone, since He was also in the beginning, nor was
He in the beginning alone and not with God, since "He was in the beginning with
God."

6. HOW THE WORD IS THE MAKER OF ALL THINGS, AND EVEN THE HOLY SPIRIT WAS MADE
THROUGH HIM.

"All things were made through Him." The "through whom "is never found in the
first place but always in the second, as in the Epistle to the Romans, "Paul a
servant of Christ Jesus, a called Apostle, separated to the Gospel of God which
He promised before by His prophets in Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who
was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, deter mined the Son of God
in power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of the dead,
Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we received grace and apostleship, for
obedience of the faith among all the nations, for His name's sake." For God
promised aforehand by the prophets His own Gospel, the prophets being His
ministers, and having their word to speak about Him "through whom." And again
God gave grace and apostleship to Paul and to the others for the obedience of
the faith among all the nations, and this He gave them through Jesus Christ the
Saviour, for the "through whom" belonged to Him. And the Apostle Paul says in
the Epistle to the Hebrews: "At the end of the days He spoke to us in His Son,
whom He made the heir of all things, 'through whom' also He made the ages,"
showing us that God made the ages through His Son, the" through whom" belonging,
when the ages were being made, to the Only-begotten. Thus, if all things were
made, as in this passage also, through the Logos, then they were not made by the
Logos, but by a stronger and greater than He. And who else could this be but the
Father? Now if, as we have seen, all things were made through Him, we have to
enquire if the Holy Spirit also was made through Him. it appears to me that
those who hold the Holy Spirit to be created, and who also admit that "all
things were made through Him," must necessarily assume that the Holy Spirit was
made through the Logos, the Logos accordingly being older than He. And he who
shrinks from allowing the Holy Spirit to have been made through Christ must, if
he admits the truth of the statements of this Gospel, assume the Spirit to be
uncreated. There is a third resource besides these two (that of allowing the
Spirit to have been made by the Word, and that of regarding it as uncreated),
namely, to assert that the Holy Spirit has no essence of His own beyond the
Father and the Son. But on further thought one may perhaps see reason to
consider that the Son is second beside the Father, He being the same as the
Father, while manifestly a distinction is drawn between the Spirit and the Son
in the passage, "Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man. it shall
be forgiven him, but whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, he shall
not have forgiveness, either in this world or in the world to come." We
consider, therefore, that there are three hypostases, the Father and the Son and
the Holy Spirit; and at the same thee we believe nothing to be uncreated but the
Father. We therefore, as the more pious and the truer course, admit that all
things were made by the Logos, and that the Holy Spirit is the most excellent
and the first in order of all that was made by the Father through Christ.

And this, perhaps, is the reason why the Spirit is not said to be God's own
Son. The Only-begotten only is by nature and from the beginning a Son, and the
Holy Spirit seems to have need of the Son, to minister to Him His essence, so as
to enable Him not only to exist, but to be wise and reasonable and just, and all
that we must think of Him as being. All this He has by participation of the
character of Christ, of which we have spoken above. And I consider that the Holy
Spirit supplies to those who, through Him and through participation in Him, are
called saints, the material of the gifts, which come from God; so that the said
material of the gifts is made powerful by God, is ministered by Christ, and owes
its actual existence in men to the Holy Spirit. I am led to this view of the
charisms by the words of Paul which he writes somewhere, "There are diversities
of gifts but the same Spirit, and diversities of ministrations, and the same
Lord. And there are diversities of workings, but it is the same God that worketh
all in all." The statement that all things were made by Him, and its seeming
corollary, that the Spirit must have been called into being by the Word, may
certainly raise some difficulty. There are some passages in which the Spirit is
placed above Christ; in Isaiah, for example, Christ declares that He is sent,
not by the Father only, but also by the Holy Spirit. "Now the Lord hath sent
Me," He says, "and His Spirit." and in the Gospel He declares that there is
forgiveness for the sin committed against Himself, but that for blasphemy
against the Holy Spirit there is no forgiveness, either in this age or in the
age to come. What is the reason of this? Is it because the Holy Spirit is of
more value than Christ that the sin against Him cannot be forgiven? May it not
rather be that all rational beings have part in Christ, and that forgiveness is
extended to them when they repent of their sins, while only those have part in
the Holy Spirit who have been found worthy of it, and that there cannot well be
any forgiveness for those who fall away to evil in spite of such great and
powerful cooperation, and who defeat the counsels of the Spirit who is in them.
When we find the Lord saying, as He does in Isaiah, that He is sent by the
Father and by His Spirit, we have to point out here also that the Spirit is not
originally superior to the Saviour, but that the Saviour takes a lower place
than He in order to carry out the plan which has been made that the Son of God
should become man.

Should any one stumble at our saying that the Saviour in becoming man was
made lower than the Holy Spirit, we ask him to consider the words used in the
Epistle to the Hebrews, where Jesus is shown by Paul to have been made less than
the angels on account of the suffering of death. "We behold Him," he says, "who
hath been made a little lower than the angels, Jesus, because of the suffering
of death, crowned with glory and honour." And this, too, has doubtless to be
added, that the creation, in order to be delivered from the bondage of
corruption, and not least of all the human race, required the introduction into
human nature of a happy and divine power, which should set right what was wrong
upon the earth, and that this action fell to the share, as it were, of the Holy
Spirit; but the Spirit, unable to support such a task, puts forward the Saviour
as the only one able to endure such a conflict. The Father therefore, the
principal, sends the Son, but the Holy Spirit also sends Him and directs Him to
go before, promising to descend, when the thee comes, to the Son of God, and to
work with Him for the salvation of men. This He did when, in a bodily shape like
a dove, He flew to Him after the baptism. He remained on Him, and did not pass
Him by, as He might have done with men not able continuously to bear His glory.
Thus John, when explaining how he knew who Christ was, spoke not only of the
descent of the Spirit on Jesus, but also of its remaining upon him. For it is
written that John said: "He who sent me to baptize said, On whomsoever thou
shalt see the Spirit descending and abiding upon Him, the same is He that
baptizeth with the Holy Spirit and with fire." It is not said only, "On
whomsoever thou shalt see the Spirit descending," for the Spirit no doubt
descended on others too, but "descending and abiding on Him." Our examination of
this point has been somewhat extended, since we were anxious to make it clear
that if all things were made by Him, then the Spirit also was made through the
Word, and is seen to be one of the "all things" which are inferior to their
Maker. This view is too firmly settled to be disturbed by a few words which may
be adduced to the opposite effect. If any one should lend credence to the Gospel
according to the Hebrews, where the Saviour Himself says, "My mother, the Holy
Spirit took me just now by one of my hairs and carried me off to the great mount
Tabor," he will have to face the difficulty of explaining how the Holy Spirit
can be the mother of Christ when it was itself brought into existence through
the Word.

But neither the passage nor this difficulty is hard to explain. For if he who
does the will of the Father in heaven is Christ's brother and sister and mother,
and if the name of brother of Christ may be applied, not only to the race of
men, but to beings of diviner rank than they, then there is nothing absurd in
the Holy Spirit's being His mother, every one being His mother who does the will
of the Father in heaven.

On the words, "All things were made by Him," there is still one point to be
examined. The "word" is, as a notion, from "life," and yet we read, "What was
made in the Word was life, and the life was the light of men." Now as all things
were made through Him, was the life made through Him, which is the light of men,
and the other notions under which the Saviour is presented to us? Or must we
take the "all things were made by Him" subject to the exception of the things
which are in Himself? The latter course appears to be the preferable one. For
supposing we should concede that the life which is the light of men was made
through Him, since it said that the life "was made" the light of men, what are
we to say about wisdom, which is conceived as being prior to the Word? That,
therefore, which is about the Word (His relations or conditions) was not made by
the Word, and the result is that, with the exception of the notions under which
Christ is presented, all things were made through the Word of God, the Father
making them in wisdom. "In wisdom hast Thou made them all," it says, not
through, but in wisdom.

7. OF THINGS NOT MADE THROUGH THE LOGOS.

Let us see, however, why the words are added, "And without Him was not
anything (Gr. even one thing) made." Some might think it superfluous to add to
the words "All things were made through Him," the phrase "Without Him was not
anything made." For if everything whatsoever was made through the Logos, then
nothing was made without Him. Yet it does not follow from the proposition that
without the Logos nothing was made, that all things were made through the Logos.
It is possible that though nothing was made without the Logos, all things were
made, not through the Logos only, but some things by Him. We must, therefore,
make ourselves sure in what sense the "all things" is to be understood, and in
what sense the "nothing." For, without a clear preliminary definition of these
terms, it might be maintained that, if all things were made through the Logos,
and evil is a part of all things, then the whole matter of sin, and everything
that is wicked, that these also were made through the Logos. But this we must
regard as false. There is nothing absurd in thinking that creatures were made
through the Logos, and also that men's brave deeds have been done through Him,
and all the useful acts of those who are now in bliss; but with the sins and
misfortunes of men it is otherwise.

Now some have held that since evil is not based in the constitution of
things--for it did not exist at the beginning and at the end it will have
ceased--that, therefore, the evils of which we spoke are the Nothing; and as
some of the Greeks say that genera and forms, such as the (general) animal and
the man, belong to the category of Nothings, so it has been supposed that all
that is not of God is Nothing, and has not even obtained through the Word the
subsistence it appears to have. We ask whether it is possible to show from
Scripture in any convincing way that this is so. As for the meanings of the word
"Nothing" and "Not-being," they would appear to be synonymous, for Nothing can
be spoken of as Not-being, and the Not-being can be described as Nothing. The
Apostle, however, appears to count the things which are not, not among those
which have no existence whatever, but rather among things which are evil. To him
the Not-being is evil; "God," he says, "called the things that are not as things
that are." And Mardochaeus, too, in the Esther of the Septuagint, calls the
enemies of Israel "those that are not," saying, "Deliver not Thy sceptre, O
Lord, to those that are not." We may also notice how evil men, on account of
their wickedness, are said not to be, from the name ascribed to God in Exodus:
"For the Lord said to Moses, I am, that is My name." The good God says this with
respect of us also who pray that we may be part of His congregation. The Saviour
praises him, saying, "None is good but one, God the Father." The good, then, is
the same as He who is. Over against good is evil or wickedness, and over against
Him who is that which is not, whence it follows that evil and wickedness are
that which is not. This, perhaps, is what has led some to affirm that the devil
is not created by God. In respect that he is the devil he is not the work of
God, but he who is the devil is a created being, and as there is no other
creator but our God, he is a work of God. It is as if we should say that a
murderer is not a work of God, while we may say that in respect he is a man, God
made him. His being as a man he received from God; we do not assert that he
received from God his being as a murderer. All, then, who have part in Him who
is, and the saints have part in Him, may properly be called Beings; but those
who have given up their part in the Being, by depriving themselves of Being,
have become Not-beings. But we said when entering on this discussion, that
Not-being and Nothing are synonymous, and hence those who are not beings are
Nothing, and all evil is nothing, since it is Not-being, and thus since they are
called Not-being came into existence without the Logos, not being numbered among
the all things which were made through Him. Thus we have shown, so far as our
powers admit, what are the "all things" which were made through the Logos, and
what came into existence without Him, since at no time is it Being, and it is,
therefore, called "Nothing."

HERACLEON'S VIEW THAT THE LOGOS IS NOT THE AGENT OF CREATION.

It was, I consider, a violent and unwarranted procedure which was adopted by
Heracleon, the friend, as it is said, of Valentinus, in discussing this
sentence: "All things were made through Him." He excepted the whole world and
all that it contains, excluding, as far as his hypothesis goes, from the "all
things "what is best in the world and its contents. For he says that the aeon
(age), and the things in it, were not made by the Logos; he considers them to
have come into existence before the Logos. He deals with the statement, "Without
Him was nothing made," with some degree of audacity, nor is he afraid of the
warning: "Add not to His words, lest He find thee out and thou prove a liar,"
for to the "Nothing" he adds: "Of what is in the world and the creation." And as
his statements on the passage are obviously very much forced and in the face of
the evidence, for what he considers divine is excluded from the all, and what he
regards as purely evil is, that and nothing else, the all things, we need not
waste our time in rebutting what is, on the face of it, absurd, when, without
any warrant from Scripture, he adds to the words, "Without Him was nothing
made," the further words, "Of what is in the earth and the creation." In this
proposal, which has no inner probability to recommend it, he is asking us, in
fact, to trust him as we do the prophets, or the Apostles, who had authority and
were not responsible to men for the writings belonging to man's salvation, which
they handed to those about them and to those who should come after. He had,
also, a private interpretation of his own of the words: "All things were made
through Him," when he said that it was the Logos who caused the demiurge to make
the world, not, however, the Logos from whom or by whom, but Him through whom,
taking the written words in a different sense from that of common parlance. For,
if the truth of the matter was as he considers, then the writer ought to have
said that all things were made through the demiurge by the Word, and not through
the Word by the demiurge. We accept the "through whom," as it is usually
understood, and have brought evidence in support of our interpretation, while he
not only puts forward a new rendering of his own, unsupported by the divine
Scripture, but appears even to scorn the truth and shamelessly and openly oppose
it. For he says: "It was not the Logos who made all things, as under another who
was the operating agent," taking the "through whom" in this sense, "but another
made them, the Logos Himself being the operating agent." This is not a suitable
occasion for the proof that it was not the demiurge who became the servant of
the Logos and made the world; but that the Logos became the servant of the
demiurge and formed the world. For, according to the prophet David, "God spake
and they came into being, He commanded and they were created." For the
unbegotten God commanded the first-born of all creation, and they were created,
not only the world and what is therein, but also all other things, whether
thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, for all things were made
through Him and unto Him, and He is before all things."

9. THAT THE LOGOS PRESENT IN US IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR SINS.

One point more on the words: "Without Him was not anything made." The
question about evil must receive adequate discussion; what was said of it has
not, it is true, a very likely appearance, and yet it appears to me that it
ought not to be simply overlooked. The question is whether evil, also, was made
through the Logos, taking the Logos, now be it well noted, in the sense of that
reason which is in every one, as thus brought into being by the reason which was
from the beginning. The Apostle says: "Without the law sin was dead," and adds,
"But when the commandment came sin revived," and so teaches generally about sin
that it has no power before the law and the commandment (but the Logos is, in a
sense, law and commandment), and there would be no sin were there no law, for,
"sin is not imputed where there is no law." And, again, there would be no sin
but for the Logos, for "if I had not come and spoken unto them," Christ says,
"they had not had sin." For every excuse is taken away from one who wants to
make excuse for his sin, if, though the Word is in him and shows him what he
ought to do, he does not obey it. It seems, them, that all things, the worse
things not excepted, were made by the Logos, and without Him, taking the nothing
here in its simpler sense, was nothing made. Nor must we blame the Logos if all
things were made by Him, and without Him nothing was made, any more than we
blame the master who has showed the pupil his duty, when the instruction has
been such as to leave the pupil, should he sin, no excuse or room to say that he
erred through ignorance. This appears the more plainly when we consider that
master and pupil are inseparable. For as master and pupil are correlatives, and
belong together, so the Logos is present in the nature of reasonable beings as
such, always suggesting what they ought to do, even should we pay no heed to his
commands, but devote ourselves to pleasure and allow his best counsels to pass
by us unregarded. As the eye is a servant given us for the best purposes, and
yet we use it to see things on which it is wrong for us to look, and as we make
a wrong use of our hearing when we spend our time in listening to singing
competitions and to other forbidden sounds, so we outrage the Logos who is in
us, and use Him otherwise than as we ought, when we make Him assist in our
transgressions. For He is present with those who sin, for their condemnation,
and He condemns the man who does not prefer Him to everything else. Hence we
find it written: "The word which I have spoken unto you, the same shall judge
you." That is as if He should say: "I, the Word, who am always lifting up my
voice in you, I, myself, will judge you, and no refuge or excuse will then be
left you." This interpretation. however, may appear somewhat strained, as we
have taken the Word in one sense to be the Word in the beginning, who was with
God, God the Word, and have now taken it in another sense, speaking of it, not
only in reference to the principal works of creation, as in the words, "All
things were made through Him," but as related to all the acts of reasonable
beings, this last being the Logos (reason), without whose presence none of our
sins are committed. The question arises whether the Logos in us is to be
pronounced the same being as that which was in the beginning and was with God,
God the Word. The Apostle, certainly, does not appear to make the Logos in us a
different being from the Logos who was in the beginning with God. "Say not in
thine heart," he says, "who shall go up into heaven; that is to bring Christ
down, or who shall go down into the abyss; that is to bring Christ up from the
dead. But what saith the Scripture? The Logos is very nigh thee, in thy mouth
and in thy heart."

10."THAT WHICH WAS MADE WAS LIFE IN HIM, AND THE LIFE WAS THE LIGHT OF MEN."
THIS INVOLVES THE PARADOX THAT WHAT DOES NOT DERIVE LIFE FROM THE LOGOS DOES NOT
LIVE AT ALL.

The Greeks have certain apothegms, called paradoxes, in which the wisdom of
their sages is presented at its highest, and some proof. or what appears to be
proof, is given. Thus it is said that the wise man alone, and that every wise
man, is a priest, because the wise man aloha: and every wise man possesses
knowledge as to the service of God. Again, that the wise man alone and that
every wise man is free and has received from the divine law authority to do what
he himself is minded to do, and this authority they call lawful power of
decision. Why should we say more about these so-called paradoxes? Much
discussion is devoted to them, and they call for a comparison of the sense of
Scripture with the doctrine thus conveyed. so that we may be in a position to
determine where religious doctrine agrees with them and where it differs from
them. This has been suggested to us by our study of the words, "That which was
made was life in Him;" for it appears possible to follow the words of Scripture
here and to make out a number of thing's which partake of the character of the
paradoxes and are even more paradoxical than these sentences of the Greeks. If
we consider the Logos in the beginning, who was with God, God the Word, we shall
perhaps be able to declare that only he who partakes of this being, considered
in this character, is to be pronounced reasonable ("logical"), and thus we
should demonstrate that the saint alone is reasonable. Again, if we apprehend
that life has come in the Logos, he, namely, who said, "I am the life," then we
shall say that no one is alive who is outside the faith of Christ, that all are
dead who are not living to God, that their life is life to sin, and therefore,
if I may so express myself, a life of death. Consider however, whether the
divine Scriptures do not in many places teach this; as where the Saviour says,
"Or have ye not read that which was spoken at the bush, I am the God of Abraham
and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is not God of the dead but of the
living." And "Before Thee shall no living being be justified." But why need we
speak about God Himself or the Saviour? For it is disputed to which of them the
voice belongs which says in the prophets, "As I live, saith the Lord."

11. HOW NO ONE IS RIGHTEOUS OR CAN TRULY BE SAID TO LIVE IN COMPARISON WITH
GOD.

First let us look at the words, "He is not the God of the dead but of the
living." That is equivalent to saying that He is not the God of sinners but of
saints. For it was a great gift to the Patriarchs that God in place of His own
name should add their name to His own designation as God, as Paul says,
"Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God." He is the God, therefore,
of the fathers and of all the saints; it might be hard to find a passage to the
effect that God is the God of any of the wicked. If, then, He is the God of the
saints, and is said to be the God of the living, then the saints are the living
and the living are saints; neither is there any saint outside the living, nor
when any one is called living is the further implication absent that in addition
to his having life he is a holy one. Near akin to this is the lesson to be drawn
from the saying, "I shall be well pleasing to the Lord in the land of the
living." The good pleasure of tile Lord, he appears to say, is in the ranks of
the saints, or in the place of the saints, and it is there that he hopes to be.
No one pleases God well who has not entered the rank of the saints, or the place
of the saints; and to that place every one must come who has assumed beforehand,
as it were in this life, the shadow and image of true God-pleasing. The passage
which declares that before God no living being shall be justified shows that in
comparison with God and the righteousness that is in Him none, even of the most
finished saints, will be justified. We might take a parable from another quarter
and say that no candle can give light before the sun, not that the candle will
not give light, only it will not when the sun out-shines it. In the same way
every "living" will be justified, only not before God, when it is compared with
those who are below and who are in the power of darkness. To them the light of
the saints will shine. Here, perhaps, we have the key to the meaning of that
verse: "Let your light shine before men." He does not say, Let your light shine
before God; had he said so he would have given a commandment impossible of
fulfilment, as if he had bidden those lights which have souls to let their light
shine before the sun. It is not only, therefore, the ordinary mass of the living
who will not be justified before God, but even those among the living who are
distinguished above the rest, or, to put it more truly, the whole righteousness
of the living will not be justified before God, as compared with the
righteousness of God, as if I were to call together all the lights which shine
on the earth by night, and to say that they could not give light in comparison
with the rays of the sun. We rise from these considerations to a higher level
when we take the words before our minds, "I live, saith the Lord." Life, in the
full sense of the word, especially after what we have been saying on the
subject, belongs perhaps to God and none but Him. Is this the reason why the
Apostle, after speaking of the supreme excellency of the life of God and being
led to the highest expression about it, says about God (showing in this a true
understanding of that saying, "I live, saith the Lord"); "who only hath
immortality." No living being besides God has life free from change and
variation. Why should we be in further doubt? Even Christ did not share the
Father's immortality; for He "tasted death for every man."

12. IS THE SAVIOUR ALL THAT HE IS, TO ALL?

We have thus enquired as to the life of God, and the life which is Christ,
and the living who are in a place by themselves, and have seen how the living
are not justified before God, and we have noticed the cognate statement, "Who
alone hath im mortality." We may now take up the assumption which may appear to
be involved in this, namely, that whatever being is gifted with reason does not
possess blessedness as a part of its essence, or as an inseparable part of its
nature. For if blessedness and the highest life were an inseparable
characteristic of reasonable being, how could it be truly said of God that He
only has immortality? We should therefore remark, that the Saviour is some
things, not to Himself but to others, and some things both to Himself and
others, and we must enquire if there are some things which He is to Himself and
to no other. Clearly it is to others that He is a Shepherd, not a shepherd like
those among men who make gain out of their occupation; unless the benefit
conferred on the sheep might be regarded, on account of His love to men, as a
benefit to Himself also. Similarly it is to others that He is the Way and the
Door, and, as all will admit, the Rod. To Himself and to others He is Wisdom and
perhaps also Reason (Loges). It may be asked whether, as He has in Himself a
system of speculations, inasmuch as He is wisdom, there are some of those
speculations which cannot be received by any nature that is begotten, but His
own, and which He knows for Himself only. Nor should the reverence we owe to the
Holy Spirit keep us from seeking to answer this question. For the Holy Spirit
Himself receives instruction, as is clear from what is said about the Paraclete
and the Holy Spirit, "He shall take of mine and shall declare it to you." Does
He, then, from these instructions, take in everything that the Son, gazing at
the Father from the first, Himself knows? That would require further
consideration. And if the Saviour is some things to others, and some things it
may be to Himself, and to no other, or to one only, or to few, then we ask, in
so far as He is the life which came in the Loges, whether he is life to Himself
and to others, or to others, and if to others, to what others. And are life and
the light of men the same thing, for the text says, "That which was made was
life in Him and the life was the light of men." But the light of men is the
light only of some, not of all, rational creatures; the word "men" which is
added shows this. But He is the light of men, and so He is the life of those
whose light he is also. And inasmuch as He is life He may be called the Saviour,
not for Himself but to be life to others, whose light also He is. And this life
comes to the Logos and is inseparable from Him, once it has come to Him. But the
Loges, who cleanses the soul, must have been in the soul first; it is after Him
and the cleansing that proceeds from Him, when all that is dead or weak in her
has been taken away, that pure life comes to every one who has made himself a
fit dwelling for the Loges, considered as God.

13. HOW THE LIFE IN THE LOGES COPIES AFTER THE BEGINNING.

Here, we must carefully observe, we have two things which are one, and we
have to define the difference between them. First, what is before us in The Word
in the beginning, then what is implied in The Life in Word. The Word was not
made in the beginning; there was no time when the beginning was devoid of the
Word, and hence it is said, "In the beginning was the Word." Of life, on the
other hand, we read, not that it was as the Word, but that it was made; if at
least it he the case that the life is the light of men. For when man was not
yet, there was no light of men; for the light of men is conceived only in
relation to men. And let no one annoy us with the objection that we have put
this trader the category of time, though it be the order of the things
themselves, that make them first and second and so on, and even though there
should have been no time when the things placed by the Loges third and fourth
were not in existence. As, then, all things were made by Him, not all things
were by Him, and as without Him was nothing made, not, without Him nothing was,
so what was made in Him, not what was in Him, was life. And, again, not what was
made in the beginning was the Word, but what was in the beginning was the Word.
Some of the copies, it is true, have a reading which is not devoid of
probability, "What was made is life in Him." But if life is the same thing as
the light of men, then no one who is in darkness is living, and none of the
living is in darkness; but every one who is alive is also in light, and every
one who is in light is living, so that not he only who is living, but every one
who is living, is a son of light; and he who is a son of light is he whose work
shines before men.

14. HOW THE NATURES OF MEN ARE NOT SO FIXED FROM THE FIRST, BUT THAT THEY MAY
PASS FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT.

We have been discussing certain things which are opposite, and what has been
said of them may serve to suggest what has been omitted. We are speaking of life
and the light of men, and the opposite to life is death; the opposite to the
light of men, the darkness of men. It is therefore plain that he who is in the
darkness of men is in death, and that he who works the works of death is nowhere
but in darkness. But he who is mindful of God, if we consider what it is to be
mindful of Him, is not in death, according to the saying, "In death there is no
one who remembers Thee." Are the darkness of men, and death, such as they are by
nature? On this point we have another passage, "We were once darkness, but now
light in the Lord," even if we be now in the fullest sense saints and spiritual
persons. Thus he who was once darkness has become, like Paul, capable of being
light in the Lord. Some consider that some natures are spiritual from the first.
such as those of Paul and the holy Apostles; but I scarcely see how to reconcile
with such a view, what the above text tells us, that the spiritual person was
once darkness and afterwards became light. For if the spiritual was once
darkness what can the earthy have been? But if it is true that darkness became
light, as in the text, how is it unreasonable to suppose that all darkness is
capable of becoming light? Had not Paul said, "We were once in darkness, but now
are we light in the Lord," and thus implied of those whom they consider to be
naturally lost, that they were darkness, or are darkness still, the hypothesis
about the different natures might have been admissible. But Paul distinctly says
that he had once been darkness but was now light in the Lord, which implies the
possibility that darkness should turn into light. But he who perceives the
possibility of a change on each side for the better or for the worse, will not
find it hard to gain an insight into every darkness of men, or into that death
which consists in the darkness of men.

15. HERACLEON'S VIEW THAT THE LORD BROUGHT LIFE ONLY TO THE SPIRITUAL.
REFUTATION OF THIS.

Heracleon adopts a somewhat violent course when he arrives at this passage,
"What was made in Him was life." Instead of the "In Him" of the text he
understands "to those men who are spiritual," as if he considered the Logos and
the spiritual to be identical, though this he does not plainly say; and then he
proceeds to give, as it were, an account of the origin of the matter and says,
"He (the Logos) provided them with their first form at their birth, carrying
further and making manifest what had been sown by another, into form and into
illumination and into an outline of its own." He did not observe how Paul speaks
of the spiritual, and how he refrains from saying that they are men. "A natural
man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to
him; but the spiritual judgeth all things." We maintain that it was not without
a meaning that he did not add the word men to the word spiritual. Spiritual is
something better than man, for man receives his form either in soul, or in body,
or in both together, not in what is more divine than these, namely, in spirit;
and it is after he has come to have a prevailing share of this that he is called
"spiritual." Moreover, in bringing forward such a hypothesis as this, he
furnishes not even the pretence of a proof, and shows himself unable to reach
even a moderate degree of plausibility for his argument on the subject. So much,
then, for him.

16. THE LIFE MAY BE THE LIGHT OF OTHERS BESIDES

Let us suggest another question, namely, whether the life was the light of
men only, and not of every being as well that is in blessedness. For if the life
were the same thing as the light of men, and if the light of Christ were for men
alone, then the life also would be only for men. But such a view is both foolish
and impious, since the other Scriptures testify against this interpretation and
declare that, when we are somewhat more advanced, we shall be equal to the
angels. The question is to be solved on the principle that when a predicate is
applied to certain persons, it is not to be at once taken to apply to them
alone. Thus, when the light of men is spoken of, it is not the light of men
only; had that been the meaning, a word would have been added to express it; the
life, it would have read, was the light of men only. For it is possible for the
light of men to be the light of others besides men, just as it is possible that
certain animals and certain plants may form the food of men, and that the same
animals and plants should be the food of other creatures too. That is an example
from common life; it is fitting that another analogy should be adduced from the
inspired books. Now the question here before us, is why the light of men should
not be the light of other creatures also, and we have seen that to speak of the
light of men by no means excludes the possibility that the light may be that of
other beings besides man, whether inferior to him or like him, Now a name is
given to God; He is said to be the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. He,
then, who infers from the saying, "The life was the light of men," that the
light is for no other than for men, ought also to conclude that the God of
Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob is the God of no one else but
these three patriarchs. But He is also the God of Elijah, and, as Judith says,
of her father Simeon, and the God of the Hebrews. By analogy of reasoning, then,
if nothing prevents Him from being the God of others, nothing prevents the light
of men from being the light of others besides men.

17. THE HIGHER POWERS ARE MEN; AND CHRIST IS THEIR LIGHT ALSO.

Another, again, appeals to the text, "Let us make man according to our image
and likeness," and maintains that whatever is made according to God's image and
likeness is man. To support this, numberless instances are adduced to show that
in Scripture "man "and "angel" are used indifferently, and that the same subject
is entitled both angel and man. This is true of the three who were entertained
by Abraham, and of the two who came to Sodom; in the whole course of Scripture,
persons are styled sometimes men, sometimes angels. Those who hold this view
will say that since persons are styled angels who are manifestly men, as when
Zechariah says, "The messenger of the Lord, I am with you, saith the Lord
Almighty," and as it is written of John the Baptist, "Behold I send My messenger
before thy face," the angels (messengers) of God are so called on account of
their office, and are not here called men on account of their nature. It
confirms this view that the names applied to the higher powers are not those of
species of living beings, but those of the orders, assigned by God to this and
to that reasonable being. "Throne" is not a species of living being, nor
"dominion," nor "principality," nor "power"; these are names of the businesses
to which those clothed with the names have been appointed; the subjects
themselves are nothing but men, but the subject has come to be a throne, or a
dominion, or a principality, or a power. In Joshua, the son of Nun, we read that
in Jericho there appeared to Joshua a man who said, "I am captain of the Lord's
host, now am I come." The outcome of this is that the light of men must be held
to be the same as the light of every being endowed with reason; for every
reasonable being is man, since it is according to the image and likeness of God.
It is spoken of in three different ways. "the light of men," and simply "the
light," and "the true light." It is the light of men either, as we showed
before, because there is nothing to prevent us from regarding it as the light of
other beings besides men, or because all beings endowed with reason are called
men because they are made in the image of God.

18. HOW GOD ALSO IS LIGHT, BUT IN A DIFFERENT WAY; AND HOW LIFE CAME BEFORE
LIGHT.

The Saviour is here called simply light. But in the Catholic Epistle of this
same John we read that God is light. This, it has been maintained, furnishes a
proof that the Son is not in substance different from the Father. Another
student, however, looking into the matter more closely and with a sounder
judgment, will say that the light which shines in darkness and is not overtaken
by it, is not the same as the light in which there is no darkness at all. The
light which shines in darkness comes upon this darkness, as it were, and is
pursued by it, and, in spite of attempts made upon it, is not overtaken. But the
light in which there is no darkness at all neither shines on darkness, nor is at
first pursued by it, so as to prove victor and to have it recorded that it was
not overtaken by its pursuer. The third designation was "the true light." But in
proportion as God, since He is the Father of truth, is more and greater than
truth, and since He is the Father of wisdom is greater and more excellent than
wisdom, in the same proportion He is more than the true light. We may learn,
perhaps, in a more suggestive manner, how the Father and the Son are two lights,
from David, who says in the thirty-fifth Psalm, "In Thy light we shall see
light." This same light of men which shines in darkness, the true light, is
called, further on in the Gospel, the light of the world; Jesus says, "I am the
light of the world." Nor must we omit to notice that whereas the passage might
very well have run, "That which was made was in Him the light of men, and the
light of men was life," he chose the opposite order. He puts life before the
light of men, even if life and the light of men are the same thing; in thinking
of those who have part in life, though that life is also the light of men, we
are to come first to the fact that they are living the divine life spoken of
before; then we come to their enlightenment. For life must come first if the
living person is to be enlightened; it would not be a good arrange-meat to speak
of the illumination of one not yet conceived as living, and to make life come
after the illumination. For though "life" and "the light" of men are the same
thing, the notions are taken separately. This light of men is also called, by
Isaiah, "the light of the Gentiles," where he says, "Behold I have set Thee for
a covenant of the generation, for a light of the Gentiles;" and David, placing
his confidence in this light, says in the twenty-sixth Psalm, "The Lord is my
illumination and my Saviour; whom shall I fear?"

19. THE LIFE HERE SPOKEN OF IS THE HIGHER LIFE, THAT OF REASON.

As for those who make up a mythology about the aeons and arrange them in
syzygies (yokes or pairs), and who consider the Logos and Life to have been
emitted by Intellect and Truth, it may not be beside the point to state the
following difficulties. How can life, in their system, the yokefellow of the
Word, derive his origin from his yokefellow? For "what was made in Him," he
says, evidently referring to the Word, mentioned immediately before, "was life."
Will they tell us how life, the yokefellow, as they say, of the Word, came into
being in the Word, and how life rather than the Word is the light of men. It
would be quite natural if men of reasonable minds, who are perplexed with such
questions and find the point we have raised hard to dispose of, should turn
round upon us and invite us to discuss the reason why it is not the Word that is
said to be the light of men, but life which originated in the Word. To such an
enquiry we shall reply that the life here spoken of is not that which is common
to rational beings and to beings without reason, but that life which is added to
us upon the completion of reason in us, our share in that life, being derived
from the first reason (Logos). It is when we turn away from the life which is
life in appearance only, not in truth, and when we yearn to be filled with the
true life, that we are made partakers of it, and when it has arisen in us it
becomes the foundation of the light of the higher knowledge (gnosis). With some
it may be that this life is only potentially and not actually light, with those
who do not strive to search out the things of the higher knowledge, while with
others it is actually light. With these it clearly is so who act on Paul's
injunction, "Seek earnestly the best gifts;" and among the greatest gifts is
that which all are enjoined to seek, namely, the word of wisdom, and it is
followed by the word of knowledge. This wisdom and this knowledge lie side by
side; into the difference between them this is not a fitting occasion to
enquire.

20. DIFFERENT KINDS OF LIGHT; AND OF DARKNESS.

"And the light shineth in darkness and the darkness hath not overtaken it."
We are still enquiring about the light of men, since it is what was spoken of in
the preceding verse, and also, I consider, about darkness, which is named as its
adversary, the darkness also being, if the definition of it is correct, that of
men. The light of men is a generic notion covering two special things; and with
the darkness of men it is the same. He who has gained the light of men and
shares its beams will do the work of light and know in the higher sense, being
illuminated by the light of the higher knowledge. And we must recognize the
analogous case of those on the other side, and of their evil actions, and of
that which is thought to be bat is not really knowledge, since those who
exercise it have the reason (Logos) not of light but of darkness. And because
the sacred word knows the things which produce light, isaiah says: "Because Thy
commandments are a light upon the earth," and David says in the Psalm, "The
precept of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes." But since in addition to
the commandments and the precepts there is a light of higher knowledge, we read
in one of the twelve (prophets), "Sow to yourselves for righteousness, reap to
yourselves for the fruit of life, make light for yourselves the light of
knowledge." There is a further light of knowledge in addition to the
commandments, and so we read, "Make light for yourselves," not simply light, but
what light?--the light of knowledge. For if any light that a man kindles for
himself were a light of knowledge, then the added words, "Make light for
yourselves, the light of knowledge," would have no meaning. And again that
darkness is brought upon men by their evil deeds, we learn from John himself,
when he says in his epistle, "If we say that we have fellowship with Him and
walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth," and again, "He that saith he is
in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now," and again,
"He that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth
not whither he goeth, because darkness hath blinded his eyes." Walking in
darkness signifies evil conduct, and to hate one's brother, is not that to fall
away from that which is properly called knowledge? But he also who is ignorant
of divine things walks in darkness, just because of that ignorance; as David
says, "They knew not, they understood not, they walk in darkness."

Consider, however, this passage, "God is light and in Him is no darkness,"
and see if the reason for this saying is not that darkness is not one, being
either two, because there are two kinds of it, or many, because it is taken
distributively, individually with reference to the many evil actions and the
many false doctrines; so that there are many darknesses, not one of which is in
God. The saying of the Saviour could not be spoken of the Holy One, "Ye are the
light of the world;" for the Holy One is light of the world (absolute, not
particular), and there is not in Him any darkness.

21. CHRIST IS NOT, LIKE GOD, QUITE FREE FROM DARKNESS: SINCE HE BORE OUR
SINS.

Now some one will ask how this statement that there is no darkness in Him can
be regarded as a thing peculiar to Him, when we consider that the Saviour also
was quite without sin. Could it not be said of Him also that "He is light, and
that there is no darkness in Him"? The difference between the two cases has been
partly set forth above. We will now, however, go a step further than we did
before, and add, that if God made Christ who knew no sin to be sin for us, then
it could not be said of Him that there was no darkness in Him. For if Jesus was
in the likeness of the flesh of sin and for sin, and condemned sin by taking
ripen Him the likeness of the flesh of sin, then it cannot be said of Him,
absolutely and directly, that there was no darkness in Him. We may add that "He
took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses," both infirmities of the soul and
sicknesses of the hidden man of our heart. On account of these infirmities and
sicknesses which He bore away from us, He declares His soul to be sorrowful and
sore troubled, and He is said in Zechariah to have put on filthy garments,
which, when He was about to take them off, are said to be sins. "Behold, it is
said, I have taken away thy sins." Because He had taken on Himself the sins of
the people of those who believed in Him, he uses many such expressions as these:
"Far from my salvation are the words of my transgressions," and "Thou knowest my
foolishness, and my sins were not hid from Thee." And let no one suppose that we
say this from any lack of piety towards the Christ of God; for as the Father
alone has immortality and our Lord took upon Himself. for His love to men, the
death He died for us, so to the Father alone the words apply, "In Him is no
darkness," since Christ took upon Himself, for His goodwill towards men, our
darknesses. This He did, that by His power He might destroy our death and remove
the darkness which is in our soul, so that the saying in Isaiah might be
fulfilled, "The people that sat in darkness saw a great light." This light,
which came into being in the Logos, and is also life, shines in the darkness of
our souls, and it has come where the rulers of this darkness carry on their
struggle with the race of men and strive to subdue to darkness those who do not
stand firm with all their power; that they might be enlightened the light has
come so far, and that they might be called sons of light. And shining in
darkness this light is pursued by the darkness, but not overtaken.

22. HOW THE DARKNESS FAILED TO OVERTAKE THE LIGHT.

Should any one consider that we are adding something that is not written,
namely, the pursuit of the light by the darkness, let him reflect that unless
the darkness had pursued the light the words, "The darkness did not overtake
it," would have no meaning. John writes for those who have wit to see what is
omitted and to supply it as the context requires, and so he wrote, "The darkness
did not overtake it." If it did not overtake it, it must first have pursued it,
and that the darkness did pursue the light is clear from what the Saviour
suffered, and those also who received His teachings, His own children, when
darkness was doing what it could against the sons of light and was minded to
drive light away from men. But since, if God be for us, no one, however that way
minded, can be against us, the more they humbled themselves the more they grew,
and they prevailed exceedingly. In two ways the darkness did not overtake the
light. Either it was left far behind and was itself so slow, while the light was
in its course so sharp and swift, that it was not even able to keep following
it, or if the light sought to lay a snare for the darkness, and waited for it in
pursuance of the plan it had formed, then darkness, coming near the light, was
brought to an end. In either case the darkness did not overtake the light.

23. THERE IS A DIVINE DARKNESS WHICH IS NOT EVIL, AND WHICH ULTIMATELY
BECOMES LIGHT.

In connection with this subject it is necessary for us to point out that
darkness is not to be understood, every time it is mentioned, in a bad sense;
Scripture speaks of it sometimes in a good sense. The heterodox have failed to
observe this distinction, and have accordingly adopted most shameful doctrines
about the Maker of the world, and have indeed revolted from Him, and addicted
themselves to fictions and myths. We must, therefore, show how and when the name
of darkness is taken in a good sense. Darkness and clouds and tempest are said
in Exodus to be round about God, and in the seventeenth Psalm, "He made darkness
His secret place, His tent round about Him, dark water in clouds of the air."
Indeed, if one considers the multitude of speculation and knowledge about God,
beyond the power of human nature to take in, beyond the power, perhaps, of all
originated beings except Christ and the Holy Spirit, then one may know how God
is surrounded with darkness, because the discourse is hid in ignorance which
would be required to tell in what darkness He has made His hiding-place when He
arranged that the things concerning Him should be unknown and beyond the grasp
of knowledge. Should any one be staggered by these expositions, he may be
reconciled to them both by the "dark sayings" and by the "treasures of
darkness," hidden, invisible, which are given to Christ by God. In nowise
different, I consider, are the treasures of darkness which are hid in Christ,
from what is spoken of in the text, "God made darkness His secret place," and
(the saint) "shall understand parable and dark saying." And consider if we have
here the reason of the Saviour's saying to His disciples, "What ye have heard in
darkness, speak ye in the light." The mysteries committed to them in secret and
where few could hear, hard to be known and obscure, He bids them, when
enlightened and therefore said to be in the light, to make known to every one
who is made light. I might add a still stranger feature of this darkness which
is praised, namely, that it hastens to the light and overtakes it, and so at
last, after having been unknown as darkness, undergoes for him who does not see
its power such a change that he comes to know it and to declare that what was
formerly known to him as darkness has now become light.

24. JOHN THE BAPTIST WAS SENT. FROM WHERE? HIS SOUL WAS SENT FROM A HIGHER
REGION.

"There was a man sent from God, whose name was John." He who is sent is sent
from somewhere to somewhere; and the careful student will, therefore, enquire
from what quarter John was sent, and whither. The "whither" is quite plain on
the face of the story; he was sent to Israel, and to those who were willing to
hear him when he was staying in the wilderness of Judaea and baptizing by the
banks of the Jordan. According to the deeper sense, however, he was sent into
the world, the world being understood as this earthly place where men are; and
the careful student will have this in view in enquiring from where John was
sent. Examining the words more closely, he will perhaps declare that as it is
written of Adam, "And the Lord sent him forth out of the Paradise of pleasure to
till the earth, out of which he was taken," so also John was sent, either from
heaven or from Paradise, or from some other quarter to this place on the earth.
He was sent that he might bear witness of the light. There is, however, an
objection to this interpretation, which is not to be lightly dismissed. It is
written in Isaiah: "Whom shall I send, and who will go to the people?" The
prophet answers: "Here am I,--send me." He, then, who objects to that rendering
of our passage which appears to be the deeper may say that Isaiah was sent not
to this world from another place, but after having seen "the Lord sitting on a
throne high and lifted up," was sent to the people, to say, "Hearing, ye shall
hear and shall not understand," and so on; and that in the same manner John, the
beginning of his mission not being narrated, is sent after the analogy of the
mission of Isaiah, to baptize, and to make ready for the Lord a people prepared
for Him, and to bear witness of the light. So much we have said of the first
sense; and now we adduce certain solutions which help to confirm the deeper
meaning about John. In the same passage it is added, "He came for witness, to
bear witness of the light." Now, if he came, where did he come from? To those
who find it difficult to follow us, we point to what John says afterwards of
having seen the Holy Spirit as a dove descending on the Saviour. "He that sent
me," he says, "to baptize with water, He said unto me, Upon whomsoever thou
shall see the Holy Spirit descending and abiding upon Him, the same is He that
baptizeth with the Holy Spirit and with fire." When did He send him and give him
this injunction? The answer to titlE question will probably be that when He sent
him to begin to baptize, then He who was dealing with him uttered this word. But
a more convincing argument for the view that John was sent from another region
when he entered into the body, the one object of his entry into this life being
that he should bear witness of the truth, may be drawn from the narrative of his
birth. Gabriel, when announcing to Zacharias the birth of John, and to Mary the
advent of our Saviour among men, says: That John is to be "filled with the Holy
Spirit even from his mother's womb." And we have also the saying, "For behold,
when the voice of thy salutation came into mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb
for joy." He who sedulously guards himself in his dealings with Scripture
against forced, or casual, or capricious procedure, must necessarily assume that
John's soul was older than his body, and subsisted by itself before it was sent
on the ministry of the witness of the light. Nor must we overlook the text,
"This is Elijah which is to come." For if that general doctrine of the soul is
to be received, namely, that it is not sown at the same time with the body, but
is before it, and is then, for various causes, clothed with flesh and blood;
then the words "sent from God" will not appear to be applicable to John alone.
The most evil of all, the man of sin, the son of perdition, is said by Paul to
be sent by God: "God sendeth them a working of error that they should believe a
lie; that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure
in unrighteousness." But our present question may, perhaps, be solved in this
way, that as every man is a man of God, simply because God created him, but not
every man is called a man of God, but only he who has devoted himself to God,
such as Elijah and those who are called men of God in the Scriptures, thus every
man might be said in ordinary language to be sent from God, but in the absolute
sense no one is to be spoken of in this way who has not entered this life for a
divine ministry and in the service of the salvation of mankind. We do not find
it said of any one but the saints that he is sent by God. It is said of Isaiah
as we showed before; it is also said of Jeremiah, "To whomsoever I shall send
thee thou shalt go"; and it is said of Ezekiel, "I send thee to nations that are
rebellious and have not believed in Me." The examples, however, do not expressly
speak era mission from the region outside life into life, and as it is a mission
into life that we are enquiring about, they may seem to have little bearing on
our subject.

But there is nothing absurd in our transferring the argument derived from
them to our question. They tell us that it is only the saints, and we were
speaking of them, whom God is said to send, and in this sense they may be
applied to the case of those who are sent into this life.

25. ARGUMENT FROM THE PRAYER OF JOSEPH, TO SHOW THAT THE BAPTIST MAY HAVE
BEEN AN ANGEL WHO BECAME A MAN.

As we are now engaged with what is said of John, and are asking about his
mission, I may take the opportunity to state the view which I entertain about
him. We have read this prophecy about him, "Behold, I send My messenger (angel)
before Thy face, who shall prepare Thy way before Thee;" and at this we ask if
it can be one of the holy angels who is sent down on this ministry as forerunner
of our Saviour. No wonder if, when the first-born of all creation was assuming a
human body, some of them should have been filled with love to man and become
admirers and followers of Christ, and thought it good to minister to his
kindness towards man by having a body like that of men. And who would not be
moved at the thought of his leaping for joy when yet in the belly, surpassing as
he did the common nature of man? Should the piece; entitled "The prayer of
Joseph," one of the apocryphal works current among the Hebrews, be thought
worthy of credence, this dogma will be found in it clearly expressed. Those at
the beginning, it is represented, having some marked distinction beyond men, and
being much greater than other souls, because they were angels, they have come
down to human nature. Thus Jacob says: "I, Jacob, who speak to you, arid Israel,
I am an angel of God, a ruling spirit, and Abraham and Isaac were created before
every work of God; and I am Jacob, called Jacob by men, but my name is Israel,
called Israel by God, a man seeing God, because I am the first-born of every
creature which God caused to live." And he adds: "When I was coming from
Mesopotamia of Syria, Uriel, the angel of God, came forth, and said, I have come
down to the earth and made my dwelling among men, and I am called Jacob by name.
He was wroth with me and fought with me and wrestled against me, saying that his
name and the name of Him who is before every angel should be before my name. And
I told him his name and how great he was among the sons of God; Art not thou
Uriel my eighth, and I am Israel and archangel of the power of the Lord and a
chief captain among the sons of God? Am not I Israel, the first minister in the
sight of God, and I invoked my God by the inextinguishable name?" It is likely
that this was really said by Jacob, and was therefore written down, and that
there is also a deeper meaning in what we are told, "He supplanted his brother
in the womb." Consider whether the celebrated question about Jacob and Esau has
a solution. We read,' "The children being not yet born, neither having done
anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand,
not of works but of him that calleth, it was said, "The elder shall serve the
younger." Even as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."

What shall we say, then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid." If,
then, when they were not yet born, and had not done any-thing either good or
evil, in order that God's purpose according to election might stand, not of
works, but of him that calleth, if at such a period this was said, how if we do
not go back to the works done before this life, can it be said that there is no
unrighteousness with God when the elder serves the younger and is hated (by God)
before he has done anything worthy of slavery or of hatred? We have made
something of a digression in introducing this story about Jacob and appealing to
a writing which we cannot well treat with contempt; but it certainly adds weight
to our argument about John, to the effect that as Isaiah's voice declares he is
an angel who assumed a body for the sake of bearing witness to the light. So
much about John considered as a man.

26. JOHN IS VOICE, JESUS IS SPEECH. RELATION OF THESE TWO TO EACH OTHER.

Now we know voice and speech to be different things. The voice can be
produced without any meaning and with no speech in it, and similarly speech can
be reported to the mind without voice, as when we make mental excursions, within
ourselves. And thus the Saviour is, in one view of Him, speech, and John differs
from Him; for as the Saviour is speech, John is voice. John himself invites me
to take this view of him, for to those who asked who he was, he answered, "I am
the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord! make His
paths straight!" This explains, perhaps, how it was that Zacharias lost his
voice at the birth of the voice which points out the Word of God, and only
recovered it when the voice, forerunner of the Word, was born. A voice must be
perceived with the ears if the mind is afterwards to receive the speech which
the voice indicates. Hence, John is, in point of his birth, a little older than
Christ, for our voice comes to us before our speech. But John also points to
Christ; for speech is brought forward by the voice. And Christ is baptized by
John, though John declares himself to have need to be baptized by Christ; for
with men speech is purified by voice, though the natural way is that speech
should purify the voice which indicates it. In a word, when John points out
Christ, it is man pointing out God, the Saviour incorporeal, the voice pointing
out the Word.

27. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NAMES OF JOHN AND OF HIS PARENTS.

The force that is in names may be applied in many matters, and it may be
worth our while to ask at this point what is the significance of the names John
and Zacharias. The relatives wish, as the giving of a name is a thing not to be
lightly disposed of, to call the child Zacharias, and are surprised that
Elisabeth should want him to be called John. Zacharias then writes, "His name is
John," and is at once freed from his troublesome silence. On examining the
names, then, we find "Joannes "to be "Joa" without the "nes." The New Testament
gives Hebrew names a Greek form and treats them as Greek words; Jacob is changed
into Jacobus, Symeon into Simon, and Joannes is the same as Joa. Zacharias is
said to be memory, add Elisabeth "oath of my God," or "strength of my God." John
then came into the world from grace of God (=Joa=Joannes), and his parents were
Memory (about God) and the Oath of our God, about the fathers. Thus was he born
to make ready for the Lord a people fit for Him, at the end of the Covenant now
grown old, which is the end of the Sabbatic period. Hence it is not possible
that the rest after the Sabbath should have come into existence from the seventh
of our God; on the contrary, it is our Saviour who, after the pattern of His own
rest, caused us to be made in the likeness of His death, and hence also of His
resurrection.

28. THE PROPHETS SORE WITNESS TO CHRIST AND FORETOLD MANY THINGS CONCERNING
HIM.

"He came for a witness that He might bear witness of the light, that all
through Him might believe." Some of the dissenters from the Church's doctrine,
men who profess to believe in Christ, have desired another being, as indeed
their system requires, besides the Creator, and hence cannot allow His coming to
the world to have been foretold by the prophets. They therefore endeavour to get
rid of the testimonies of the prophets about Christ, and say that the Son of God
has no need of witnesses, but that He brings with Him His own evidence, partly
in the sound words full of power which He proclaimed and partly in the wonderful
works He did, which were sufficient at once to convince any one whatever. Then
they say: If Moses is believed on account of his word and his works, and has no
need of any witnesses to announce him beforehand, and if the prophets were
received, every one of them, by these people, as messengers from God, how should
not one who is much greater than Moses and the prophets accomplish His mission
and benefit the human race, without prophets to bear witness about Him? They
regard it as superfluous that He should have been foretold by the prophets,
since the prophets were concerned, as these opponents would say, that those who
believed in Christ should not receive Him as a new God, and therefore did what
they could to bring them to that same God whom Moses and the prophets taught
before Jesus. To this we must say that as there are many causes which may lead
men to believe, since men who are not moved by one argument may be by another,
so God is able to provide for men a number of occasions, any of which may cause
their minds to open to the truth that God, who is over all, has taken on Himself
human nature. It is manifest to all, how some are brought by the prophetic
writings to the admiration of Christ. They are astounded at the voices of so
many prophets before Him, which establish the place of His birth, the country of
His upbringing, the power of His teaching, His working of wonderful works, and
His human passion brought to a close by His resurrection. We must notice, too,
that Christ's stupendous acts of power were able to bring to the faith those of
Christ's own time, but that they lost their demonstrative force with the lapse
of years and began to be regarded as mythical. Greater evidential value than
that of the miracles then performed attaches to the comparison which we now make
between these miracles and the prophecy of them; this makes it impossible for
the student to cast any doubt on the former. The prophetic testimonies do not
declare merely the advent of the Messiah; it is by no means the case that they
teach this and nothing else. They teach a great deal of theology. The relation
of the Father to the Son and of the Son to the Father may be learned not less
from what the prophets announce about Christ, than from the Apostles narrating
the splendours of the Son of God. A parallel case, which we may venture to
adduce, is that of the martyrs, who were honoured by the witness they bore Him,
and by no means conferred any favour on Him by their witnessing for the Son of
God. And how is it if, as many of Christ's true disciples were honoured by
having thus to witness for Him, so the prophets received from God as their
special gift that of understanding about Christ and announcing Him before, and
that they taught not only those living after Christ's advent how they should
regard the Son of God, but those also who lived in the generations before Him?
As he who in these times does not know the Son has not the Father either, so
also we are to understand it was in these earlier times. Hence "Abraham rejoiced
to see the day of Christ, and he saw it and was glad." He, therefore, who
declares that they are not to testify about Christ is seeking to deprive the
chorus of the prophets of the greatest gift they have; for what office of equal
importance would be left to prophecy, inspired as it is by the Holy Spirit, if
all connection with the economy of our Lord and Master were taken away from it?
For as these have their faith well ordered who approach the God of the universe
through Mediator and High-Priest and Paraclete, and as his religion is a halting
one who does not go in through the door to the Father, so also in the case of
men of old time. Their religion was sanctified and made acceptable to God by
their knowledge and faith and expectation of Christ. For we have observed that
God declares Himself to be a witness and exhorts them all to declare the same
about Christ, and to be imitators of Him, bearing witness of Him to all who
require it. For he says, "Be witnesses for Me, and I am witness, saith the Lord
God, and My servant whom I have chosen." Now every one who bears witness to the
truth, whether he support it by words or deeds, or in whatever way, may properly
be called a witness (martyr); but it has come to be the custom of the
brotherhood, since they are struck with admiration of those who have contended
to the death for truth and valour, to keep the name of martyr more properly for
those who have borne witness to the mystery of godliness by shedding their blood
for it. The Saviour gives the name of martyr to every one who bears witness to
the truth He declares; thus at the Ascension He says to His disciples: "You
shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judaea and in Samaria and unto the
uttermost parts of the earth." The leper who was cleansed had still to bring the
gift which Moses commanded for a testimony to those who did not believe in the
Christ. In the same way the martyrs bear witness for a testimony to the
unbelieving, and so do all the saints whose deeds shine before men. They spend
their life rejoicing in the cross of Christ and bearing witness to the true
light.

29. THE SIX TESTIMONIES OF THE BAPTIST ENUMERATED. JESUS' "COME AND SEE."
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TENTH HOUR.

Accordingly John came to bear witness of the light, and in his
witness-bearing he cried, saying, "He that cometh after me exists before me; for
He was before me; for of His fulness we have all received and grace for grace,
for the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
No one hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of
the Father, He hath declared Him." This whole speech is from the mouth of the
Baptist bearing witness to the Christ. Some take it otherwise, and consider that
the words from "for of His fulness" to "He hath declared Him" are from the
writer, John the Apostle. The true state of the case is that John's first
testimony begins, as we said before, "He that cometh after me," and ends, "He
hath declared Him," and his second testimony is that spoken to the priests and
levites sent from Jerusalem, whom the Jews had sent. To them he confesses and
does not deny the truth, namely, that he is not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the
prophet, but "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way
of the Lord, as saith Isaiah the prophet." After this there is another testimony
of the same Baptist to Christ, still teaching His superior nature, which goes
forth into the whole world and enters into reasonable souls. He says, "There
standeth One among you whom you know not, even He that cometh after me, the
latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to unloose." Consider if, since the heart
is in the middle of the whole body, and the ruling principle in the heart, the
saying, "There standeth One among you whom you know not," can be understood of
the reason which is in every man. John's fourth testimony of Christ after these
points to His human sufferings. He says, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh
away the sin of the world. This is He of whom I said, After me cometh a man who
exists before me, for He was before me. And I knew Him not, but that He should
be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water." And the
fifth testimony is recorded in the words, "I beheld the Spirit descending as a
dove out of heaven, and it abode upon Him, and I knew Him not, but He that sent
me to baptize with water, He said unto me, Upon whomsoever thou shall see the
Spirit descending and abiding upon Him, the same is He that baptizeth with the
Holy Spirit. And I have seen and borne witness that this is the Son of God." In
the sixth place John witnesses of Christ to the two disciples: "He looked on
Jesus as He walked and saith, Behold the Lamb of God.': After this testimony the
two disciples who heard it followed Jesus; and Jesus turned and beheld them
following, and saith unto them, "What seek ye?" Perhaps it is not without
significance that after six testimonies John ceases from his witness-bearing and
Jesus brings forward in the seventh place His "What seek ye?" Very becoming in
those who have been helped by John's testimony is the speech in which they
address Christ as their Master, and declare their wish to see the dwelling of
the Son of God; for they say to Him, "Rabbi," which answers to "Master," in our
language, "where dwellest Thou?" And since every one that seeketh findeth, when
John's disciples seek Jesus' dwelling, Jesus shows it to them, saying, "Come and
see." By the word "Come" He exhorts them perhaps to the practical part of life,
while the "see" is to suggest to them that that speculation which comes in the
train of right conduct will be vouchsafed to those who desire it; in Jesus'
dwelling they will have it. After they had asked where Jesus dwells, and had
followed the Master and had seen, they desired to stay with Him and to spend
that day with the Son of God. Now the number ten is a sacred one, not a few
mysteries being indicated by it; and so we are to understand that the mention of
the tenth hour as that at which these disciples turned in with Jesus, is not
without significance. Of these disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, is
one; and he having profited by this day with Jesus and having found his own
brother Simon (perhaps he had not found him before), told him that he had found
the Messiah, which is, being interpreted, Christ. It is written that "he that
seeketh findeth." Now he had sought where Jesus dwelt, and had followed Him and
looked upon His dwelling; he stays with the Lord "at the tenth hour," and finds
the Son of God, the Word, and Wisdom, and is ruled by Him as King. That is why
he says, "We have found the Messiah," and this a thing which every one can say
who has found this Word of God and is ruled as by a king, by His Divinity. As a
fruit he at once brings his brother to Christ, and Christ deigned to look upon
Simon, that is to say, by looking at him to visit and enlighten his ruling
principle; and Simon by Jesus' looking at him was enabled to grow strong, so as
to earn a new name from that work of firmness and strength, and to be called
Peter.

3O. HOW JOHN WAS A WITNESS OF CHRIST, AND SPECIALLY OF "THE LIGHT."

It may be asked why we should have gone through all this when the verse
before us is, "He came for wireless, that he might bear witness of the light."
But it was necessary to give John's testimonies to the light, and to show the
order in which they took place, and also, in order to show how effective John's
testimony proved, to set forth the help it afforded afterwards to those to whom
he bore it. But before all these testimonies there was an earlier one when the
Baptist leaped in the womb of Elisabeth at the greeting of Mary. That was a
testimony to Christ and attested His divine conception and birth. And what more
need I say? John is everywhere a witness and forerunner of Christ.

He anticipates His birth and dies a little before the death of the Son of
God, and thus witnesses not only for those at the time of the birth, but to
those who were expecting the freedom which was to come for man through the death
of Christ. Thus, in all his life, he is a little before Christ, and everywhere
makes ready for the Lord a people prepared for Him. And John's testimony
precedes also the second and diviner coming of Christ, for we read, "If ye will
receive it, this is Elijah which is to come. He that hath ears to hear let him
hear." Now, there was a beginning, in which the Word was,--and we saw from
Proverbs that that beginning was wisdom.--and the Word was in existence, and in
the Word life was made, and the life was the light of men; and all this being
so, I ask why the man who came, sent from God, whose name was John, why he came
for witness to bear witness especially of the light? Why did he not come to bear
witness of the life, or of the Word, or about the beginning. or about any other
of the many aspects in which Christ appears?

Consider here the texts, "The people which sat in darkness saw a great
light," and "The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness overtook it not,"
and consider how those who are in darkness, that is, men, have need of light.
For if the light of men shines in darkness, and there is no active power in
darkness to attain to it, then we must partake of other aspects of Christ; at
present we have no real share of Him at all. For what share have we of life, we
who are still in the body of death, and whose life is hid with Christ in God?
"For when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with
Him in glory." It was not possible, therefore, that he who came should bear
witness about a life which is still hid with Christ in God. Nor did he come for
witness to bear witness of the Word, for we know the Word who was in the
beginning with God and who is God the Word; for the Word was made flesh on the
earth. And though the witness had been, at least apparently, about the Word, it
would in fact have been about the Word made flesh and not about the word of God.
He did not come, therefore, to bear witness of the Word. And how could there be
any witness-bearing about wisdom, to those who, even if they appear to know
something, cannot understand pure truth, but behold it through a glass and in an
enigma? It is likely, however, that before the second and diviner advent of
Christ, John or Elias will come to bear witness about life a little before
Christ our life is made manifest, and that then they will bear witness about the
Word, and offer also their testimony about wisdom. Some inquiry is necessary
whether a testimony such as that of John is to precede each of the aspects of
Christ. So much for the words, "He came for witness, to bear witness of the
light." What we are to understand by the further words, "That all might believe
through Him," may be considered later.